Cathedral effect
Mount St. Bernard Abbey Something about how the building shapes the way a space is used has always fascinated me. Take books out of a library, and suddenly there is an invitation for noise. Malls and airports feel less frantic because of their high ceilings. Log cabins are cosy because of their small rooms and low ceilings. I was thinking of all this during Mass last Sunday. I've been attending the services at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey , a Cistercian Monastery. The church is massive, not in its footprint, but in its height. Looking up from the pews it's about 12 metres (or 40 feet) of space. This space inspires spirituality in a way that I've not known for years. The church of my childhood, Christ the King in Pretoria , is enormous in my memory and dominated by gigantic stain-glass windows. In my early teens, we moved to a much smaller church, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and then to St Judes in Vredenburg in my late teens. St Judes was uninspiring in its architecture and